Frias scholar Aminata Dieng poses at UNLV Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. Dieng, a Western High School graduate originally from Mauritania, is one of 24 Charles and Phyllis Frias Legacy scholars selected by the Public Education Foundation.
Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Aminata Dieng left her home country of Mauritania in 2009, when she was 6 years old, to seek asylum in the United States.
She eventually settled in Las Vegas, attended Western High School and had hoped to join the military upon graduation. Those plans, however, were waylaid when she learned she couldn’t enlist because of her immigration status, Dieng said.
The plans really changed one day when she was relaxing at home and got a call from officials at Western instructing her to immediately come to the school.
“I was like, I didn’t do anything. Why am I in trouble?” Dieng recalled.
It turned out Dieng wasn’t in trouble. At the school, she learned she was being awarded the Charles and Phyllis Frias Legacy Scholarship worth $100,000 — enough to cover her college expenses.
It was a life-altering event.
A first-generation college student, Dieng is a sophomore at UNLV working toward a criminal justice degree.
“When I found out that they did, I was shocked. For two weeks, I still couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I would look at the check and I would see if my name is spelled correctly, because it could have been a mistake. I could not believe it. So yeah, it was really life-changing for me.”
Beverly Mathis, vice president of academic and community initiatives at UNLV, mentors the 24 Frias scholars, many of whom are first-generation college students.
“It means that I have the opportunity to help students be successful in their four years of college,” Mathis said. “And you know, that’s what we want to do every day.”
The 24 Frias scholars were given the freedom to choose where to attend college. Ten of them are at UNLV, six at UNR, four at Nevada State University, three are at College of Southern Nevada, and one at the University of Portland in Oregon.
Applicants to the scholarship program are required to write a 350-word essay about adversity they have experienced. In the process, they have displayed that they have what Mathis calls “grit.”
“I’m reminded that nothing can stop you. That every day, we’re going to keep moving forward, regardless of whatever the adversity is,” Mathis said. “And you know what else, though? The fact that people care.”
The Charles and Phyllis Frias Legacy Scholarship program, now in its second year, is facilitated through the Public Education Foundation, which is a nonprofit that works with 350 donors. The scholarship program is named for the philanthropic founders of Frias Transportation Management, which for years operated fleets of taxis in the Las Vegas Valley. Charles Frias died in 2006; Phyllis died in 2016.
Riley Caspersen, senior director of marketing, grants and community engagement with the Public Education Foundation, said the Charles and Phyllis Frias Legacy Scholarship program also emphasized completing a degree.
“We’re just really excited about that,” Caspersen says “that we’re able to, you know, really encourage them not just to enroll in college, but to persist and graduate one day.”
Public Education Foundation is accepting applications for the scholarships from high school seniors in Nevada, Caspersen said. The deadline is Jan. 31, but she stresses starting the process early to collect the required transcripts and letters of recommendation.
The goal is to find more students like Dieng, who aspires to be a FBI agent — a field, she says, is male-dominated and lacks diversity.
“I really think that it would be really cool for someone like me, who’s from a different place in the world, to see what I can do,” she said.
